Steven Pinker - The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

[sulljoh1]

Pinker helps overturns my deeply held ideas (by presenting evidence) with great regularity.

[iasedu]

@sulljoh1 Good :)

[TomFynn]

A war killing 60% of the population? Holy shit! How the hell come no one has ever heard of it?

[iasedu]

@TomFynn Was that a joke?

[TomFynn]

@iasedu Not really. I - and, as Pinker pointed out, most people - had never heard of it. Yet it was a war obviously more brutal and more violent than any other.

How the hell could that have come about?

[iasedu]

@TomFynn If the Rehoboth population of 60 in western Namibia is attacked, and 36 people in the tribe is killed in the attack, do you get to hear about it? Would anybody run into a cave and write it on the walls, so that National Geographic could make an episode on it 4000 years later?

[TomFynn]

@iasedu 36 people? Probably not. 400000 people? Even in mid-18th century? Somehow I thought that would be more news worthy...

[iasedu]

@TomFynn You have misunderstood everything, I think. Steven Pinker is talking about how violence has declined AFTER civilization and culture, the most violent times of our history was when we lived in tribes and hunter/gatherer societies, were populations ranged from 60-150. Were war and battle was common, and fatalities higher.

[TomFynn]

@iasedu Yes, I know. I got that impression from his TED talk. What amazes me is that a war which wipes out 90% of a population even in our information age (ok in the last ~150 years) can slip so completely under the radar. It happened around the time of the American Civil War, had twice the amount of casualties and yet no one has ever heard of it...

[TomFynn]

@TomFynn Correction: 400000 *soldiers* on both side. For Paraguay alone the total losses *including* civilians were around 1.2 million people. 90% of the population...

[iasedu]

@TomFynn Oh, I didn't know which war you were referring to.

[TomFynn]

@iasedu Should have been more precise. I was referring to the "War of the Triple Alliance".

[TomFynn]

@TomFynn Nearly forgot: Cool stuff. Thanks for upload!

[TonanteOrffeus]

Interesting version of Human History ...anyway hope be true.

[OwensTV]

Great book and a great lecture. 

[dahveeboy]

Interesting statistics, well presented.

[MrCharleswagon]

I do not think he covers perhaps the largest reducer of killing conspecifics in ancient times. That being the rise of agriculture, which created a reason not to kill all the enemy other than female children and reproductive age females. That reason being (abhorrent by our current standards of course) slavery.

[yuriythebest]

3:40 to skip the loooooooooing intro

[Pokrokus]

I am not convinced by his arguments.

[iasedu]

@Pokrokus I don't think you understand, Steven Pinker is not arguing a position, is he collecting and presenting data, he only gives his opinion on the conclusion of what the data show.

[AdaptiveReasoning]

How does he account for hunting gathering accidents vs living in a more protected state society?

[iasedu]

@AdaptiveReasoning What do you mean?

[iasedu]

@GeoSchadenfreude I'm not sure if you are being serious or not.. The Bible is a real composition of actual writings from real historic periods. The fact that the Bible is written by real people who lived in a society, and influenced by that, is reflected throughout the Bible. Most parts of the Bible is supported by history, it's not like Pontius Pilatus or Julius Cæsar are fictional! There are occasional tales and made-up nonsense in it, but it's still a piece of history.

[iasedu]

@DimmedDiamond Not true.

[iasedu]

@GeoSchadenfreude Why?

[raoulvaneigem1]

I'm always skeptical of people who make a presentation with Powerpoint using colorful comic sans font

[iasedu]

@raoulvaneigem1 How silly you are.

[FIGHTFANNERD3]

being poor won't make me kill someone

[iasedu]

@FIGHTFANNERD3 If you can't put food on the table for your wife and kids, sure you would.

[ftacla01]

@iasedu No I don't believe you would, if you have any sense of morality and empathy, which I believe you do. I HATE this "necessity" argument, and it sounds really like a justification, or at least an attempt, for justifying cruelty and immorality (yes...). Ideologically motivated, oh my god, of course he is...

[iasedu]

@ftacla01 You are the person with a lack of empathy here, try to put yourself in the shoes of a desperate husband who has watch his baby cry in desperation.

[FIGHTFANNERD3]

but great vid

[FIGHTFANNERD3]

so the black race cant bring themselves to the level of whites or asian's

but sadly its true

[Trompenburgh]

Watch stefan molyneux if you want a balance to this state-loving bullshit.

[iasedu]

@Trompenburgh Disagreeing with facts isn't that productive.

[Trompenburgh]

@iasedu

His facts of "15% of pre-historic skeletons showed signs of violence" is all but convincing. He is ideologically motivated to love the state.

[iasedu]

@Trompenburgh Oh yes, I love the state. Don't you?